Jessie Black Legal Thrillers Box Set 1

by Larry A Winters

  “Oh no. I totally forgot. You must be so pissed.”

  “Nope,” he said. His smile looked genuine. “Just really, really thirsty.”

  “It was work.”

  “I assumed.” He produced a corkscrew and went to work on the wine bottle. She watched the muscles of his arms bulge as he pulled the cork, and a tremor of excitement ran through her. She suddenly felt less fatigued. He patted the couch cushion beside him. “It’s pretty late, so I’m guessing a two-hour movie is off the table. How about we have a few glasses of wine?”

  “Thanks for being flexible.”

  “After the wine, I can show you just how flexible I am.”

  She smiled and walked across the room, then dropped onto the couch next to him. They kissed.

  He handed her a glass and lifted his. “To flexibility.”

  “Yes.” Their glasses clinked. She sipped her wine. It was good.

  One of his arms circled her waist and she leaned against him. The feeling of his body against hers felt both comfortable and exciting at the same time. She almost sighed with contentment. And yet, despite these feelings, she knew she wasn’t fully there. Part of her was still in the Stevens Academy girls’ locker room. She wanted to focus on Leary. God knows he wasn’t a hard man to focus on. She pushed thoughts of the case from her mind and lifted her wine glass to take another sip.

  “Why don’t you tell me about it?” Leary said.

  “About what?”

  He gave her a knowing look. “Come on, Jess.”

  “Am I that transparent?”

  “I just know you really well. That’s a good thing.”

  She knew he meant it, but she felt a twinge of concern anyway. They’d had to cancel their tropical vacation because of the shooting at Stevens Academy, and she’d been working nonstop ever since. Tonight had been her idea. It was supposed to be a chance for the two of them to enjoy a romantic evening together—no computer or legal pads in sight. So what did it say about her—about their relationship—that she’d completely forgotten about it and even now couldn’t get her mind off of the case?

  “Okay,” Leary said, as if reading her mind. “Let’s talk about something else. You called your dad the other day, right? How’s he doing?”

  She felt a small sense of relief. “He’s doing well. You know, he seemed a little bored, I guess, but overall, I think he’s good.”

  “Good,” he said. “That’s really good to hear. Any news about your brother and his family?”

  “Not really. Just the usual.” Her voice fell away. They sipped wine. Finally, after what seemed like the longest awkward silence in history, she said, “You really don’t mind talking about my case?”

  He hugged her more tightly against him. “Jessie, I’m dying to talk about your case.”

  “But this is supposed to be, you know, romantic.”

  “It is. It’s absolutely infused with romance. Now, tell me.”

  She sat up straighter. “You’re not going to believe it.” She told him about the stakeout of the Teal house, about how Graham and Novak had tailed Kaelee to the school, about the hidden camera they’d found set up in the girls’ locker room.

  “That’s like something out of a movie,” he said.

  “I know. That’s what Emily said. It’s an insane thing to do, right? Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it has anything to do with the shooting.”

  He paused, then said, “But?” Leary seemed to be studying her. Seemed to be reading her mind again.

  “But I can’t stop thinking about the locker room.” She shook her head. She was having trouble expressing her thoughts, and the wine wasn’t helping. “I don’t know. It’s like, I feel like there was something there. Something important. But I can’t put my finger on it.”

  Leary winced. “I know that feeling. Drives you crazy.”

  “No kidding.”

  “The best thing to do is talk. Go over it, every detail.”

  She smiled. “And you’re not just suggesting this because you want to hear all about it?”

  He shrugged. “That’s true, too, but it doesn’t change the fact that talking works. Trust me. I’ve been there many times. It’s one of the most frustrating parts of trying to solve a crime. You sift through all the evidence, and then—if you’re good at the job—your brain makes connections. It’s not something you consciously control. Not something you can force. It just has to happen on its own. And sometimes it takes its damn time.”

  “And talking helps make it faster?” she said.

  “Talking helps. If you’re up for it.”

  “I am,” she said. “Some romantic evening, huh? We’re going to snuggle while dwelling over the worst aspects of human nature.”

  “Sounds like my kind of date. So Graham and Novak watched the Teal house after they brought her in for an interview, and the surveillance paid off.”

  Jessie nodded. “Emily’s got good instincts.”

  “Good for her.” She saw something sour in his expression. “It takes more than instincts, though, to get ahead in Homicide. I hope she learns that more quickly than I did.”

  “Maybe you should tell her.”

  Leary waved away the suggestion. “She’s better off without me.” He drank more wine. She watched his throat move as he swallowed. “I’m no wise man. Nobody’s mentor.”

  “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Are we talking about me or the case?”

  “Fine. So, Graham and Novak tailed the girl to the school, watched her sneak in, and cornered her in the girls’ locker room. When Harrison opened up her locker, there was the camera. A wireless nanny cam disguised as a teddy bear.”

  “Cute.”

  “Adorable.”

  “Who’s Harrison?”

  She realized she’d left some gaps in the story. Must be her exhaustion and the wine diminishing her narrative skills. “Clark Harrison. He’s the principal. We called him there as a representative of the school to open Kaelee’s locker.”

  “You mean you called him there. Let me guess. He hasn’t been principal for very long. Not very experienced with dealing with the police.”

  “He was a science teacher until he got promoted last year.”

  Leary grinned. “So you told him you needed him to hurry over to the school right away and open Kaelee Teal’s locker for you,” Leary said, “and he did it. Without ever thinking to demand a warrant.”

  “Actually, I asked him to open all of the cheerleaders’ lockers, which would have been beyond the scope of a warrant.” She shrugged. “So, as the kids say, go me.” She blushed a little. Yes, the wine was definitely affecting her narrative skills.

  “Find anything interesting in the other lockers?”

  “Nothing you wouldn’t expect. The clothes they’d changed out of for practice. Jewelry. Bags. Phones, of course—” She stopped mid-sentence, put her wine glass down on the coffee table.

  “What?” Leary said.

  “I think my brain just made one of those connections.”

  He leaned forward. “Tell me.”

  “I’d have to double-check, but Jordan Dunn’s locker … I don’t think there was a phone in hers.”

  “And Jordan Dunn is…?”

  “One of the cheerleaders. She’s rumored to have been having an affair with a teacher.”

  “A teacher who might have wanted to get rid of her phone, just in case it contained photos, texts, who knows what,” Leary said. “A teacher trying to cover up their relationship.”

  “Or cover up her murder,” Jessie said.

  “Or both.” Leary nodded, clearly liking the idea. “Anyone besides this Clark Harrison guy have a key to the lockers?”

  “Probably.”

  “Yeah, probably. But how many of them are men? And how many of them used to teach?”

  Jessie leaned back in her chair. Clark Harrison? Was it possible? “He doesn’t seem like the murderer type.”

  “N
o?” Leary said. “Let me guess. Harrison’s been super helpful. More than happy to assist the police with their investigation. And all the while, subtly steering you away from the school. Away from himself.”

  Son of a bitch. She started to stand up.

  “Woah. Don’t tell me you’re going to leave,” he said.

  She rose to her feet, grabbed her bag, and slung it over her shoulder. “I think I have to.”

  He looked up at her, smiling. In that moment, she knew they had something special, something true, even if their relationship didn’t fit the classic mold. He didn’t just accept and understand her devotion to her work—he loved her for it. She leaned down and kissed him. The flavor of the wine mixed with the strong, sturdy flavor of him, and she didn’t want to stop.

  When she finally pulled away, she said, “I’m really sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he said. “Go be you.”

  29

  There were no questions, no sarcastic comments, no having to explain herself. One phone call, less than a minute long, and Emily Graham agreed to meet Jessie at the Roundhouse at 1:15 AM. Jessie reflected on that as she took a taxi to Police Headquarters. She and Graham had come a long way since their first meeting, when Jessie had had to fight the detective just to spare ten minutes to walk her through the crime scene.

  Graham was waiting for her in front of the building. Novak was there, too. “So what’s this about?” Graham said. “You’ve got something about our investigation that couldn’t wait until the morning?”

  “I think I do.”

  Novak arched an eyebrow. “This I gotta hear.”

  A cool night breeze fluttered Jessie’s hair. The streets around the police station were quiet. She laid out her theory for Graham and Novak, step by step, the same way she’d talked it through with Leary. The locker without a phone. The cheerleader with the illicit affair. The teacher with the motive to cover it up and the key to access the lockers.

  “I don’t know,” Graham said. “That sounds pretty shaky. How many glasses of wine did you say you had?”

  “Bring him in,” Jessie said. “Tonight. Question him here at the Roundhouse.” She tilted her chin at the huge building behind them, looming in the darkness. “I really think he may be our man. True_Man.”

  Graham and Novak exchanged a glance. Novak shrugged. “Let’s go get him.”

  “I have his home phone number,” Jessie said. “I guess we should call first, given the time.”

  Graham shook her head. “You want a confession, right? Then we don’t call first.”

  “It’s almost 1:30 in the morning,” Jessie said.

  “Exactly. We show up at his house unannounced while he’s sleeping peacefully next to his wife, dreaming about violating minors.”

  “A lot more intimidating that way,” Novak said.

  Jessie felt a tremor of doubt. “What if it turns out he’s not the right guy? I don’t want to be so aggressive we give him grounds for a civil case against the city.”

  “You called us here in the middle of the night,” Graham said. “I know you’re a workaholic, but I don’t think even you would have done that unless you had a really strong feeling about this.”

  Jessie nodded. “I do.”

  “Go inside,” Graham said, indicating Police HQ. “You must have a favorite chair in front of the one-way glass by now. Make yourself comfortable.”

  Jessie turned to do just that, then thought of something else and turned around again. “Make sure you get his computer,” she said. “We’ll need Eldon to search it for evidence linking Harrison to the True_Man identity.”

  Without evidence conclusively linking Harrison to True_Man, their whole case would be circumstantial. There would be no trial. She’d never get past the preliminary hearing.

  “If there’s a computer in his house, we’ll get it,” Graham said.

  Jessie watched them leave, then went inside the Roundhouse. She walked through the mostly-deserted workspace of the Homicide Division and returned to the same observation room in which she’d watched the interviews of Arabella Minsky and Kaelee Teal through one-way glass. She leaned back in a swivel chair—Graham was right, she did have a favorite—and looked through the window. In shadowy silence, the interrogation room looked like a theater stage before the curtain goes up.

  She hoped Graham and Novak returned with Harrison soon. She was looking forward to show time.

  30

  Novak parked their unmarked car. He and Graham took a moment to watch the street. The Harrisons lived in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, in a suburban, middle-class neighborhood. Their house, a white colonial, was not exactly a shack, but not particularly nice, either—that was obvious even with the building shrouded in darkness at close to two in the morning. Compared to the houses of the Stevens Academy students she’d seen—Lanford, Minsky, Dunn—the principal’s house looked shabby, even a little sad. Graham wondered if that pissed Harrison off, coming home to his modest little house after a long day serving the educational needs of the city’s elite? Did it make him feel better to screw the daughter of one of those high and mighty moneyed families? No, she decided. Probably not. Probably, she was giving him too much credit. He’d just been horny.

  It was a sequence she’d seen before, and one any homicide cop would recognize: Horny. Then ashamed. Then afraid. Then desperate. And eventually, after fear had eaten away any moral restraints he might have possessed, desperate enough to kill to cover it up. In this case, to stage a massacre.

  “You ready?” Novak said. He pulled his Glock, checked the magazine, and holstered it again.

  “Ready.” She climbed out of the car. The street was quiet, almost silent, save for the faint buzzing of insects in the grass. The sound of Novak closing his door was like a gunshot, and she winced.

  There were lights on in the downstairs of the house. She watched the windows for signs of movement, didn’t see any.

  Novak joined her at the front door. “You know, I think I’m going to enjoy making this arrest,” he said. “I still remember my high school principal. A real sanctimonious prick.”

  “Spent a lot of time in detention, did you?”

  “When I was lucky. Most of the time, they just suspended me.”

  She looked at him. “Guess you were a rebel back then.”

  “Nah. I just thought it was funny to stick cherry bombs in toilets.”

  “And now you’re a police detective.”

  He cracked a half-smile, his teeth white in the darkness. “Yup. My principal never saw that coming.”

  And, if they were lucky, Principal Clark Harrison wouldn’t see them coming. Not at 2:00 AM on a quiet night.

  Graham rang the bell. They waited as minutes passed. The door swung open and a disheveled woman in pajamas and a bathrobe looked at them through narrowed, suspicious eyes. Her brown hair was pulled back in a severe knot, and her face was lined and tired-looking. Even so, Graham could see that she had been pretty, maybe even beautiful, before life and a scumbag husband had ground away her youth.

  “Mrs. Harrison? My name is Detective Emily Graham. This is Detective Tobias Novak. Is your husband at home?”

  “Of course he is.” The woman didn’t open the door wider or invite them inside. The creases in her face seemed to deepen. “It’s the middle of the night. Is this about the … incident at the school? Hasn’t Clark helped you enough already?”

  “I apologize for the late hour,” Graham said, “but it’s really important that we speak with your husband now.”

  She tried to peer past the woman, but all she saw was a dark and dreary entryway. After a moment, Mrs. Harrison sighed and took a step backward with one slippered foot. “Come in, I guess.” Then, half-turning, she called over her shoulder, “Clark!”

  He appeared a second later, also wearing a robe, his feet covered in dirty-looking white socks. His first reaction upon seeing the two homicide detectives standing in his entryway was unmistakable—fear—but he recovered quickly wi
th a smile that looked way too big to be genuine.

  “Detectives Graham and Novak. I wish you’d called….” He looked down at his robe and cinched the fluffy belt at his waist. “I would have gotten ready.”

  I bet, Graham thought.

  “Well, come inside,” he continued. “How can I help you?”

  Harrison was already walking deeper into the house. Novak followed him, and so did Graham, but with an uneasy feeling. Harrison didn’t feel dangerous to her—not in a hands-on kind of way—but all the same, she didn’t like being here on his home turf. Better to get him into the back of their car and drive him to the Roundhouse, ASAP.

  The inside of the house was as unimpressive as the exterior. Everything looked outdated—wallpaper that looked vintage 1980’s, shaggy carpeting straight out of the 70’s. No fancy appliances in the kitchen. She wondered again how the disparity between his life and that of his students made him feel. Maybe Graham would ask him later—on her home turf.

  “Actually, Mr. Harrison, we’d like you to accompany us to the police station.”

  Harrison’s wife let out a little gasp. Harrison turned to look at Graham. “Right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is this about?” Mrs. Harrison said. Her voice became shrill, laced with fear. “Why can’t it wait until morning?”

  Harrison shot her an irritated look. “It’s fine, Barbara. The school comes first.”

  Barbara shook her head. “It’s not right.”

  Graham kept her focus on Harrison. For the space of a few seconds—seconds in which Graham stopped breathing—he looked like he might do something stupid. Guilty people often did, at the moment the police arrived to take them in. She didn’t know what was going through Harrison’s mind right now. Grab a knife from the butcher block on the counter? Throw the glass coffee carafe at her head? But something in his eyes had changed. She felt the reassuring bulk of her holster and willed him not to act on whatever panic impulse was rushing through his system. She was still suffering sleepless nights from shooting Wesley Lanford. She didn’t want another firefight.